An Asian Goddess for Inglourious Basterds

After yesterday’s news about Ennio Morricone possibly teaming up with Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds, anything I write from now on seems rather unexciting. I’ve also mentioned (thanks to The Playlist) that Mike ‘shagadelic’ Myers has already wrapped up his cameo for the movie, and indeed we have reported on Sam Jackson joining the project as the Narrator and Maggie Cheung joining as Madame Mimieux. I’d have to look it up, because I haven’t read the script yet (pretty resilient, am I not?), so I won’t go into detail about this character. As far as I know she would be the lady owning the Cinemateque that serves as the location for the final acts of the movie. Why am I writing all this? We can indeed confirm Maggie Cheung for the part, and personally, I am very very excited about this. Not only is she one of my favorite Asian actresses, and not only is she breathtakingly beautiful, she’s also really talented and has played famous roles in many of our most admired movies that sit on our DVD shelves, under the section “China, Hong Kong and other Asian movies” or however you call that section in your DVD collection. You might remember her from Wong Kar-Wai‘s 2046, one of my all-time favorite movies, or from Hero, which had a US theatrical release that was promoted by QT, or from Ashes of Time, another Kar-Wai movie that has recently been re-released in a ‘redux’ version (which incited some controversy, some like the old one better, I have to admit I haven’t seen either of the two and now I am confused which one to watch), or how about such classics as In the Mood for Love (which is kind of the prequel to 2046 and one of the most romantic and poetic movies of all time. If a costume designer is reading this, please remember her dress from that movie!), As Tears Go By (Kar-Wai again, what can you say, the man’s a poet!) and Police Story? This just to bring you up to speed with Maggie Cheung, for those of you new to Asian cinema for whatever reason you may now shut your computer down and run to the video store of your choice.